


Personal Protection

by everything_else



Category: Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat
Genre: Alternate Universe - Bodyguard, Alternate Universe - Politics, Angst, Enemies to Lovers, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-20
Updated: 2020-09-19
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:42:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,341
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26008204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/everything_else/pseuds/everything_else
Summary: He passed his eyes over Damen, but didn’t acknowledge him. “I didn’t agree to this” he told the policewoman.“Your uncle thinks it is necessary” said Damen.Laurent met his eyes then, expression unchanged from one of cool hostility. “You’ve met him.” He missed the inflection that would have made it a question, so Damen didn’t answer.“I understand you don’t want me here, but it is to protect you.”“I’m capable of doing that myself.” A while ago, Damen would have smiled at that. Laurent was slight, and he had to lift his chin to meet his eyes.“You’ll forgive me if I disagree.”“Will I? Fascinating.”// The Regent is running for PM. Damen is assigned as bodyguard to his adopted son.
Relationships: Damen/Laurent (Captive Prince)
Comments: 29
Kudos: 104





	1. Chapter 1

There was a seductive grandeur about the place, more than could be felt from the crowded scenes they showed on the news. There was a sense that the weight of history converged with the eyes of pale men in paintings on the place where Damen sat. Matters affecting the whole country rippled out from this building, even as it was part of another world, a world of gilt picture frames and heavy curtains. The dull sky and churn of London traffic were not on the other side of the wall, but, as of the minutes Damen had been waiting, they were of a different age. The grey light from the windows was sanguine in the yellow panels, bright in the polished furniture, lazy in the chandelier. The contrast with the dark and noise of the army barracks was enough to cast a shadow over Damen’s perception. In the carpet, delicate lines curled in parallel, so that the cream background looked like thick, coiled snakes.

The Foreign Secretary looked older than he did on TV, but his charm was unabated. He sounded sincere when he impressed, “It’s a pleasure to meet you”. Damen understood, perhaps, how so many seemed to overlook his hard line conservatism for his humble demeanour and cheerful prevarication. His father liked him, he knew, though that might have come after a certain arrangement with his company. Damen shook the white hand that was extended to him.

“I understand you are to be my nephew’s bodyguard” Reginald Vere said, once they were seated. His office was smaller than the other room, and the window arched high behind his desk, casting it into faint shadow. Damen’s chair was heavy, dark wood like the desk, where a pen hovered in its stand.

“Yes sir”

“And you’re an army man. Afghanistan?”

Damen did well to keep his voice neutral. “Yes sir”

“I’ve heard you are a good soldier.”

“Thank you, sir”. A year ago Damen would have felt pride at that, but now he had to consciously relax the muscles in his jaw. Vere voted in favour of the war.

His eyes were pale blue, crinkled at the edges with the pleasure of his own compliment. He paused. “I wanted to meet with you about my nephew. I’m sure you’ve guessed that I will be running for the party leadership.”

Damen gave a nod. It had been rumoured since the PM announced their resignation that Reginald would stand. He had been high up in the party for years, and his nephew, Laurent Vere, had garnered media attention as the child he’d adopted in the wake of a national tragedy. The boy was pictured a few times reading sweetly in the corner at press conferences.

“I care about Laurent very much, though I suppose it’s known that we’re not close.” Vere smiled ruefully. “I worry, especially about the increase in media attention. He can be…fractious”.

Damen didn’t keep up with the tabloids, he mostly knew Laurent as the subject of clickbait online: _You'll never guess which Conservative politician's son this is! Feel old yet? This is Laurent Vere now._ He’d read up on them after the job was assigned, though, and they painted an older Laurent as rude and ungrateful, the entitled teenager breaking his uncle’s heart. It seemed to be true, honestly. Laurent was given a well paid position in the Conservative party but was publicly hostile to the man who’d raised him. One item had garnered outrage for dissecting his detachment at a memorial service on the anniversary of the accident.

“I hoped that we might be able to meet again, and that you could tell me how he is.” said the Foreign Secretary, with an air of confession. It was impossible not to pity him, if only in this. “He may not want anything to do with me, but he’ll always be my first priority.”

“Of course” said Damen. Vere’s relief was apparently greater than Damen expected. He grasped Damen’s hand once again. “Thank you. It’s been a pleasure, truly, Damen. I’ll see you again”. There was, for a moment, a conspiratorial glint in his eye. “And good luck.”

It was that evening that they were introduced. The air was heavy; there would be a storm later, perhaps. Damen waited with a police woman outside the offices, a watery sky reflected in the glass. It wasn’t safe, they were exposed at too many angles, but there was already a taxi waiting at the curb.

The Akelios offices weren’t far from here. Damen had the unwelcome thought that he’d see Kastor. His brother would ask: “How long have you been back? Does dad know?”

Laurent was immediately recognisable. He drew attention for looking out of place, like a prince from a renaissance painting in a white collared shirt, buttoned up to the throat. He was fair: his skin, his hair, disturbed by the breeze.

He passed his eyes over Damen, but didn’t acknowledge him. “I didn’t agree to this” he told the policewoman.

“Your uncle thinks it is necessary” said Damen.

Laurent met his eyes then, expression unchanged from one of cool hostility. “You’ve met him.” He missed the inflection that would have made it a question, so Damen didn’t answer.

“I understand you don’t want me here, but it is to protect you.”

“I’m capable of doing that myself.” A while ago, Damen would have smiled at that. Laurent was slight, and he had to lift his chin to meet his eyes.

“You’ll forgive me if I disagree.”

“Will I? Fascinating.” Laurent turned towards the cab, and Damen was amused to have uncovered a little of his petulance. He caught a brief look from the police woman.

They didn’t speak inside the taxi. Damen asked the driver to alter his route, though he could feel Laurent’s irritation from the front seat. It meant taking a longer route, past grand town houses, merging grey with the sky behind them around windows lit from inside. Damen couldn’t picture himself living in one, even after months of remembering this as home. It felt foreign now. He expected sand at every corner, reaching out to the horizon, but there were only ever more houses and lights inside windows, unblinking.

Damen had seen plans of Laurent’s house already. It was detached, and large enough for a family. The ground floor was open plan, but dark walls and low lights prevented any real sense of space. The heavy wood furniture and Victorian features attenuated the sense of a high end showroom, which was otherwise compounded by the lack of clutter or decoration, but for a bookshelf that spanned one wall.

The place was secure. The alarm system was operational, and there was no sign of any intrusion. The windows had been reinforced on Damen’s recommendation; he had been working with the police on security intermittently since he left the army, so they knew he was capable.

The two bedrooms at the back of the house were the biggest security concern, given that they where empty, and faced the garden. The interiors felt older than the other rooms, and undisturbed.

Downstairs, Laurent leant against the kitchen counter, holding a mug by its rim. “Any armed gunmen?”

“It’s a big house” said Damen. Honestly, it probably wasn’t much bigger than his own parents’ house, but he hadn’t been there in a few years now.

Laurent considered. “My uncle owns half. I’d sell it if I could.”

“Did you live here when you were younger?”

Damen didn’t remember the tabloid gossip, but he remembered the accident. Aleron Vere, a high profile conservative politician and a widower, crashed on Christmas Eve with his two sons in the car. He was killed along with his eldest, Laurent’s brother.

Laurent took a sip from his mug. “Yes.” Something had shifted. “What was your name again?”

“Damen”

“You served in Afghanistan.”

“Yes.”

“My uncle voted in favour of the war. Do you agree with him?” Laurent’s tone wasn’t decisive between mockery, curiosity or judgement. His face was pale, impervious.

“No.”

He seemed satisfied. He put down his mug on the counter. “I suppose, though, difficult decisions have to be made.”

Damen forced himself not to react, not to give voice to the anger that was building the longer he thought about Laurent dismissing the war like any other banality of political life, the war that destroyed so much and so many for the profit of men like his uncle.

“Do you think he’ll make a good prime minister?” he asked instead, restrained. He thought the answer would be no. Laurent wasn’t his brother, a rising star of the soft left, but he’d at least disagree politically with a man he was well documented as hating.

Laurent considered Damen for another moment before replying. “We have our differences, but yes. He will be capable.” He had a smooth, hard look, and his beauty became a mask; unforgiving. “You can go now”.

At night, Damen dreamed of sand. He couldn’t see past it, it stretched out on every side under a fixed sun. He knew that he’d lost his radio, and he looked in vain for a black mark, an interruption in the sea of beige that undulated and repeated for what he thought would be an eternity.

A shock. Someone was shouting in his ear. There was no cover, and the brightness exploded into black.   
  
The first thing Damen became aware of was his breathing, the ringing of his own voice in his ears. His shirt was damp with sweat.  
  
He was standing, and it was cold, too cold to be the barracks, and too quiet too. He could hear traffic outside, a distant monotone rush. The time glowed on the clock: 3AM.  
  
There was only a bed and a wardrobe in the room, and the walls were bare. Most of Damen’s things were still in a case in the corner. He was in a flat in central London, which he’d rented when he came home almost six months ago, though it looked more like someone had recently moved out. He wasn’t living here, not really. He couldn’t. London hadn’t changed, if he drew the curtains the lights would still stretch out on every side, like stars had fallen into the streets, it was him who was different. Once you’ve seen death, life isn’t so exciting.  
  
No one knew Damen was home from the front. He didn’t want them to know. His father wouldn’t say much about it, but he’d give the impression of regret that his suspicions had been confirmed. Maybe he’d make another offer of a job, this time lower down at the company.  
  
Damen sat, and he did the breathing exercises he’d learned from videos online. Slowly, the darkness dissolved from the solid mass it had become.

  
He just had to do his job. He just had to live with the fear that had settled deep inside him while he was away, and the loneliness that had made its home in him since he’d been back. He just had to analyse security risks, respond to threats and follow orders. He was capable of that, though the latter might prove be the most challenging.

Damen took a sleeping pill, and this time he dreamed about Laurent’s house, and endless empty rooms.


	2. Chapter 2

As far as Damen was aware, Laurent didn’t tell anyone he had a meeting at the Home Office, which made his job very difficult. It was, at least, secure. Laurent had met with a few MPs since Damen had been assigned to him, each without advance notice, and all largely unimportant figures occupying centre ground within the party. He tended to turn up late to work afterwards, feigning a hangover.

There was an echo of his uncle’s charm in how he greeted the education secretary, shaking his hand and thanking him for agreeing to meet. His instruction to Damen, that he would wait outside, was the first time he’d acknowledged him that morning.

The offices were quiet, too quiet. There must have been soundproofing built into the walls. The whole place, then, was just pockets of noise connected by carpet corridors.

Damen stood beside the door, back straight, chin lifted. He was anticipating a loud noise in the silence, even as he knew it wouldn’t come. People passed, their steps cushioned.

When the door opened, the geniality was gone. Laurent was stern. “Thank you, minister.”

“Thank you. I’m glad to have spoken with you.” The man’s voice was low.

Laurent ignored Damen, who followed him to the elevator.

“You’re well connected” Damen commented, once they were stood outside.

“I hope that’s not a surprise to you.”

Damen should have been used, by now, to Laurent’s apathy, but he wasn’t; people tended to like him, even strangers, or at least respect him. Laurent didn’t, and his exchange with the minister had thrown it into fresh relief: he was capable of decency, he just didn’t consider Damen deserving of it. Damen’s irritation escaped in a short breath.

Laurent deigned to look at him. “What?”

He didn’t consider his thought before he spoke it. “I think I’d be a bit nicer to someone supposed to take a bullet for me”.

Laurent didn’t perfectly conceal his surprise, or the amusement that followed. He was convincing, though, with minimal effort, as he held Damen’s gaze and said, “You’re right. Please accept my sincere apologies”. Damen ignored him, and watched the elevator doors slide open.

It was spacious, a carpeted square inside wooden rails, surrounded by clean mirrors. It was one of infinite elevators, extending in rows on each side. Laurent faced him.

“You don’t need a bodyguard” said Damen. It was true; Laurent wasn’t in danger. It wasn’t clear why his uncle thought he was. He hoped for an agreement, if not for an explanation.

Laurent gave him a strange look. “Should I be concerned that you’re becoming self aware?”

“Who would want to hurt you? What would they have to gain?” There was a trace frown on Laurent’s face.

“I’m flattered.”

“Don’t be.” said Damen. “I’m trained to withstand torture.”

Laurent turned to obscure a smirk, and Damen had to repress his own smile at that. Maybe it was a cause for concern. Nik would think so, he'd despair of this whole situation. It was difficult for Damen to deny his best friend’s suspicion that he had a thing for arrogant blondes.

Damen didn’t try to make Laurent laugh again. He wanted to, sometimes; the silences could be unbearable while he waited for a bomb to explode into them. He had to remind himself who Laurent was, who he worked for, despite the doubts that were circling overhead. Laurent was watching him too, he noticed, when they were alone.

The street was cold. Damen wasn’t used to cold. The sky was fringed with a faraway glow, behind houses already shrouded in darkness. The gravel crunched under his shoes as he approached Laurent’s house, and he could almost imagine he was coming home after a long day at work.

He was here because Laurent had a meeting with the home secretary at a bar in town. Smythe was a good friend of his uncle's, if the coverage was to be believed. Damen didn’t like the man, but his family approved of his priority for business over welfare.

In the kitchen, Laurent had his back to Damen, with a door to the glass cabinet open. He spared Damen a glance.

“Take off your shirt.”

Damen took a moment. “What did you say?”

Laurent shut the door and opened another. He retrieved a short glass, which made a hollow clink on the counter, before turning again for a bottle. “I need to wear it. You can borrow something from upstairs.”

“Why?”

“Mine are too fitted.”

Laurent poured a glass of what looked like whiskey from a decanter. Damen hadn’t seen him drink before; Laurent, who stood as straight as any private.

The request didn't make much sense. It could only be about power. Damen felt Laurent's eyes on him as he unbuttoned his shirt, and he didn't hide his bemusement as he handed it over, like a crumpled flag.

“You can borrow a t shirt from the draws upstairs.” said Laurent. “There are a couple that will fit.”

It was hard to picture Laurent in a t shirt, but he did own some, at the bottom of a chest of draws in his bedroom. They were soft and a few of them must have been too big for him, because the navy one Damen tried fit passably. 

Downstairs, Laurent finished buttoning Damen’s shirt just below his collarbone. He had rolled the sleeves up, and the shoulders of the shirt hit further down than they should, pulling at the open collar and exposing his throat. His hair had a dishevelled look, bright under the kitchen lights.

He handed Damen his jacket, arch. “We’re leaving.”

The silence in the taxi wasn’t the same one Damen had come to know with Laurent. The tension that always seemed to exist in him was greater, its focus shifted. Perhaps there was a romantic intention to this meeting; it would explain the concern with his appearance. Damen rejected that idea. Streetlights flashed in the sky, casting the whole car in orange.

The bar wasn’t one Damen would ever choose to go to, not even if he took a salary from his father’s company. The ceiling was coffered, and a brown leather sofa snaked behind the tables at the edges of the room. Immense bulbs of textured glass hung from the ceiling and emitted a pale, verdant light. It could have been a gentleman’s club, but there were some younger people there, most of them women. No one seemed to pay attention to the home secretary, who greeted Laurent with a handshake and a firm hold on his arm. “Laurent. Your uncle misses you greatly dear boy!”

Damen didn’t hear Laurent’s reply, but apparently it was amusing. Smythe entreated him to sit behind the table on the leather sofa and then joined him, turned so that their knees touched.

Damen could only watch them from where he was stood. He couldn’t hear anything over the supercilious conversations around him, or the rhythmic clatter behind the bar. He declined the bartender’s offer of a drink. The glasses glinted where they hung in rows, suspended by their feet above the marble counter. If there was artillery now, the fine spheres would explode into shrapnel.

It was a little under an hour and a several drink orders before the atmosphere at the table changed. Laurent was speaking steadily now, Damen noticed, deliberately, while Smythe’s expression darkened slowly from consternation to anger. Laurent cut off his raised voice once, twice, looking at the table now. He had tucked his leg in. Damen took a step towards him.

He saw the moment that Smythe reacted. He anticipated his move to stand and advance on Laurent so that Damen was there between them in time, a hand on Smythe’s chest while he was still unsteady. The man's shock was greater than his anger, but there seemed to be hurt there too, and panic, that often preceded violence.

“You- How dare you say such a lie.“

“Sir, I have to ask you to step back.”

Smythe’s fists were clenched, his arms drawn back. He hardly seemed to notice Damen. "Never speak like that again. You’ll destroy him. Is that what you want?”

He tried to step around Damen, who forced him back. “Leave, Laurent.”

Outside, the traffic rushed past the curb. It wasn’t safe to be here long. Damen missed the adrenaline as if left him and the air got colder.

Smythe was talking about Laurent's uncle, he guessed, but why and how Laurent might destroy him was a mystery.

Laurent was like porcelain beside him; pale and impervious.

“That wasn’t necessary” he said, after a moment.

“I think it was.”

The house was warm, and safe, according to Damen’s checks. Nothing had moved since they had left; the rooms were still empty, the beds made, the surfaces bare. Now Damen knew, though, or thought he knew: Laurent was lying.

Laurent was waiting in the main room, opposite the kitchen, leaning against the desk with his hands on the edge. He watched Damen come closer.

“You’re not working for your uncle, are you?" Damen spoke with more confidence that he felt. "You were trying to persuade Smythe to withdraw his support.”

“Persuade is an interesting word for it. Smythe is loyal.”

“Blackmail, then.”

Laurent took a glass off the table behind him, in answer, and offered it to Damen. The liquid inside was a deep amber.

“I’m on duty.”

“Consider yourself relieved.”

Laurent had been drinking, the evidence of that was a subtle pink high up on his cheeks, and Damen was bigger than him so he was unlikely to get him drunk. Damen took the glass. The whiskey was smooth, and the taste it left was a rich sweetness in his mouth.

“My uncle voted for the war in Afghanistan, and against the inquiry. He also voted against government support for soldiers with injuries and PTSD.”

Damen gave him a wary look. “Okay”

“I know you’re spying for him. Anything that he’s promised you is contingent on him winning leadership, though, and I will ensure he doesn’t. I also know your brother paid off government officials for a tax break on imports from your father’s company-”

Damen interrupted him. “I’m not spying on you.”

“You’re not wearing a microphone” Laurent granted. “I’d have seen it when you took your shirt off. And there isn’t any communication with my uncle in your texts or emails. I checked your phone earlier when you left it in your jacket. So there must be a camera or a microphone somewhere in here.”

His tone was measured, belying the paranoia in his words, and apparently in his actions. “You’re paranoid.” said Damen.

“I know what I’m dealing with.”

“I’m not spying on you”. Damen tried to lend his assertion some authority this time.

“Can you prove it?” Laurent asked. “Because there could be some scrutiny regarding your brothers acts of bribery soon. I know a few opposition parties would be interested enough to investigate.”

“How would I prove it?” Damen was irritated. “And I don’t care much for my brother.”

It was as if that possibility hadn’t occurred to Laurent. He was quiet for a moment, thinking. Then he spoke: “Kiss me.”

Damen heard him, it was enunciated well, but it bore repeating. “What?”

“If there’s a microphone in here, you’ll be recorded in serious breach of your code of conduct. You'd never get another job. There would be plenty of ways for my uncle to have it come out if you did something to upset him. Prove that there isn't one". Laurent’s words were like a gauntlet, dropped down at his feet. “You want to, so kiss me."

It was rash; something that should have remained unspoken, exposed between them. Was Damen really so transparent?

None of this made sense, though. “I could be meeting him in person.”

“It would attract too much attention. He’s careful.”

Damen looked for an indication that he wasn’t serious, and found none. Laurent was undeniable, like a thought, standing in the middle of a room, demanding a conclusion.

“This seems like an elaborate way for you to get me to kiss you.”

“Will you?” There was a challenge in it that caught.

There was something beneath this game, and Damen wanted to know what. He needed Laurent’s trust.

Laurent misjudged Damen’s priorities. That was an advantage. He had identified Damen’s attraction to him, but perhaps overestimated it.

There was a certain kind of adrenaline, though, the kind that settled in Damen’s bloodstream over many months, that soldiers sometimes spent their whole life chasing, and being with Laurent was the closest Damen had found.

“You don’t want to blackmail me again, first?”

Laurent watched him closely. “Would you like me to?”

“I liked when you asked.”

Laurent hesitated. “Kiss me.”

It seemed incontrovertible that Laurent meant it, that this was how he would be disproved. Damen considered him for a few long moments, because two could play at power games.

Laurent’s expression didn’t change, but perhaps something behind it did. Damen stepped forwards, testing, and Laurent didn’t move away from him.

Damen thought he would be cold to touch, like marble; that the folds of his shirt would be carved finely enough for light to pass through. He was wrong, the fabric folded under his hand. Laurent’s jaw shifted under Damen’s fingers, and the skin was warm.

For a second, Laurent’s expression betrayed him. He had not been what he appeared, and still wasn’t, Damen thought. Still, he didn’t press more than he would on a knife edge.

It had been a long time since Damen had kissed anyone, but he didn’t expect to feel it as deeply as he did. He imagined he felt the same relief in Laurent, who rested his hand lightly on the back of Damen’s neck.

He didn’t remove it when Damen pulled back, just as Damen didn’t remove his hand from his cheek. He was beautiful, and willing, and Damen met with no resistance as he drew them back together.

Laurent’s kiss didn’t imply experience, and Damen was gentle. He allowed it to reshape between them, become something simpler.

“Stop.” Laurent pushed him away, though he didn’t need to. Before Damen could remember himself, he had left the space in front of him.

He was in the kitchen, and Damen watched the back of his head as he poured whiskey down the sink in one quick motion. The glass rang where its base hit the marble counter.

Damen hadn’t heard him say anything like he’d said the word ‘stop’.

“I’m not working for him, Laurent.” was all he could think to say.

“There is a camera in here. It’s mine, so either way I have leverage.” Laurent didn’t turn. “You can leave now.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! Sorry it's a bit late and rough around the edges.
> 
> Please leave a comment with your thoughts, or if you enjoyed it!

**Author's Note:**

> I have this story pretty well planned out so updates are coming. (The set-up is inspired by Bodyguard on the BBC but the plot won’t be the same).
> 
> Please leave a comment if you enjoyed!


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